I've not got my copy of The White Dragon to hand, but I seem to think there is only a passing mention of a successful hatching and impression. It was obviously out of sync with the hatching of the rest of that clutch though.

The relevant chapter doesn't mention their names, but the "People of Pern" list at the back lists Celina as one of the weyr-women at Benden with queen-dragon Lamanth. Neither of them are in the earlier books so . . .

__________________"Truth is stranger than fiction: fiction has to make sense." Leo Rosten.

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twenty-four clutches in fourteen years? That is a considerable strain on a body!

If each clutch averaged 30 eggs, Ramoth alone produced 720 dragons in that time. If there are four other Golds in the Weyr, then almost 3000 dragons were produced in 14 years.

Either something is wrong with the number of clutches or dragons and riders die at an incredibly high rate.

Oh dear, that topic has been discussed to the bone in years long gone by, especially by Hartley Patterson and me. The deaths/death rate were indeed staggering but (of course) not mentioned in the books. I must have documents and spreadsheet somewhere, all correspondence on that topic.

As for Ramoth, yes, her production is large, very large. You can read that Benden started the 9th Pass with 173 dragons in 2508. It is mentioned that Ramoth's average clutch counted 30 eggs. If you count the known ones + the other of her 35 clutches at 30 you come to a number of 830 dragon eggs produced between 2508 and 25 28, so in 20 years. That's 41.5 per turn. Her first clutch alone was a staggering 41 eggs.

Most is extrapolation of course as Anne didn't provide much data (she was busy writing novels ). DLG is totally unreliable on this and we have to work with the figures we can extrapolate.

__________________Hans, also known as Elrhan, Master Archivist

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My thinking on this was based on how to maintain a stable population for 150 Turns and also meet the requirements of Pass casualties.

First, one needs to get a baseline mortality rate. I assumed a crude death rate(CDR) of three percent (30 per 1000). The highest CDR on Earth is 17.49/1000 in South Africa, which has access to more technology and advanced medicine than Pern, which is at eighteenth century level at best.

Since a Weyr is usually 500 strong, based on the construction of the six Weyrs, during an interval, this would give a CDR of 15 per Turn as a minimum. Gold dragons usually lay clutches of about twenty eggs, so having one Gold rise each Turn would keep the population stable.
The Gold dragon egg cycle would be sixty months(five Turns) between clutches. Ideally, this would result in one clutch per Turn.

Although the Weyrs have accommodations for five Gold dragons, most have fewer. Hartley states that 17 Oldtimer Golds came forward, meaning that three Weyrs had three Gold and two had four. Since they came forward at the end of a Pass, these numbers would indicate what is necessary for stability. Over five Turns, each Weyr would lose 75 dragons while clutching 60-80 replacements. Presumably, the three Weyrs with three Golds would get another Gold in the near future.

As the Interval progressed, the Weyr population would stabilize at roughly 500: 440 adults, 60 ‘lings’ (Hatchling, Yearling, Weyrling) and four Golds.

Fast forward 140 Turns to when the Red Star approaches.

The Red Star emits a low power EM signal which Sensitives(like Lessa) register as a sense of unease. The Golds react to this by kicking into ‘turbo’ mode. They unconsciously start speeding up their cycle and increasing the size of the clutches. Since they are organic, this speed up is not immediate, probably at the rate of three months and one or two eggs per Turn.

In the period P-10 Turns to Pass, the four Golds will lay at least 200 eggs (rather than 160) and would probably add one more Gold, who is born with the ‘turbo’ boost. They will also eventually be rising every thirty months and laying clutches with at least 30 eggs. Any Gold hatched in the period P-10 to P+10 would be subject to the ‘turbo’ effect, while those hatched after P+10 would be normal Golds.

The Weyrs would have about 500 adult dragons as their fighting complement When the Pass starts. CDR would spike sharply due to inexperience, but would decline after the first two or three Turns. Fifteen per cent KIA in the initial Turns (75 per Weyr per Turn) declining to about six per cent (30/Weyr/Turn) as the norm. The first Turn deficit would be 15-20 dragons, as there are close to sixty Weyrlings coming of age in that Turn.

Gold dragons are born with a limited number of eggs, so they eventually ‘egg out’ and stop rising to mate. Normally, this would be enough eggs for 16-20 clutches, which, at the normal rate, would give them a fertile span of 80 to 100 Turns (riders, however, don’t live that long). The ‘turbo’ mode would reduce that to 30 to 40 Turns due to the increased size of the clutches. The ‘born turbo’ Golds could have more eggs, raising their fertile time to 40-50 Turns. Nevertheless, the older Golds among the Old-timers are close to ‘egging out’.

I wonder if there is a story in there. Being a queen rider is already a bit of a lonely job, imagine being a queen rider or a queen who is out of sync with her peers due to the early hatching.

And it would have been a very special hatching with only one egg on the sands and one candidate. Because of having betweeen times the egg hatched earlier than its "mates". There's definitely a good story in there; a female variation on the K'van story

__________________Hans, also known as Elrhan, Master Archivist

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And it would have been a very special hatching with only one egg on the sands and one candidate. Because of having betweeen times the egg hatched earlier than its "mates". There's definitely a good story in there; a female variation on the K'van story

Not just one candidate --- when Lessa realised that the egg was almost ready to hatch, she said, "The girls must be brought." It was usual to give a queen hatchling plenty of choice. They didn't always go for the most obvious candidate.

Not just one candidate --- when Lessa realised that the egg was almost ready to hatch, she said, "The girls must be brought." It was usual to give a queen hatchling plenty of choice. They didn't always go for the most obvious candidate.

Good correction! One dragonet and several candidates of course. The queen must have some choice!

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